Lifting Weights Is Just Lifting Weights, Right? Wrong!
To an untrained eye, everyone in a gym is working out and performing some familiar movements. You can recognize those around you are doing squats, deadlifts, planks, etc, but have you ever considered that the way in which those exercises are being done will influence the results of the person doing the exercise?
I’m going to break down two physical qualities that we can train in the gym, and, if you’re feeling uninspired by your program, perhaps it’s time to train for a different goal.
Strength
We’re big fans of strength training at Resilient Training Lab, but just because there is a weight in your hands that doesn’t automatically make it strength training. A semi-formal definition of strength is your ability to produce force in a given position. For those of us in the gym, it’s your ability to move weight from one spot to another.
Now that we understand that strength is your ability to produce force in a position, how do we train it?
Here are some broad conditions to help you get stronger:
Exercises should be done to near failure. (failure means you can’t do any more reps. If you choose a weight you can only do 8 reps with at most, performing 5/6/7 reps would be training near failure.)
Training to near failure requires a ton of physical and mental effort, which means it takes some time to recover. You’ll want to be resting several minutes between sets to improve your strength.
This one is more nuanced, but it’s probably a good idea to keep sets to 8 reps or fewer. I don’t really want to get into more detail here (it’s complicated), but once you start doing a high number of reps, you’re likely driving adaptations outside of just strength.
That’s pretty much it. You need to work really hard and rest between sets to get stronger. Some pros of getting stronger:
increased ability to lift heavy stuff around the house/at work
improved self-confidence/self-efficacy in life and in the gym
increased physical and mental resilience
you can impress your friends by doing hard things
Some quick tips on strength goals:
They don’t have to exist only on squat, bench, and deadlift. You can have a strength goal for your front squat, overhead press, barbell rows, etc.
A bodyweight exercise can be a strength goal, like doing pushups or pull ups.
It doesn’t have to be a 1 rep max. If you can squat 115lb for 5 reps, chasing a 135lb squat for 5 reps is a strength goal, just like doing a set of 5 pull ups or 20 pushups
Hypertrophy
Hypertrophy training is working out with the intent to build more muscle. In my opinion, having muscle looks really cool, but objectively it’s good for your overall health and well-being. Training to build muscle will look a little different than training for strength (although it’s important to highlight that when you train strength you’ll likely build some muscle, and when you train to build muscle you’ll likely get stronger in the process.)
However, if we’re looking to be as efficient as possible, we should pick one and train for it exclusively. What does training to build muscle look like?
Exercises should be done to near failure. (failure means you can’t do any more reps. If you choose a weight you can only do 8 reps with at most, performing 5/6/7 reps would be training near failure.)
That looks familiar. When training strength or hypertrophy it’s important to put in effort. Effort can be measured as the distance from failure (for those of you familiar with RPE that’s why we use it; it’s a subjective measure of effort) and high levels of effort are shown to produce better results. Shocking. It doesn’t come easy.
Training volume is critical to building muscle, which means we need to do a lot of reps when compared to training for strength. If your training volume in a week was 100 reps of bicep curls, increasing that training volume to 110 bicep curls will have hypertrophic effects (as long as the amount of weight used, rest, effort, etc. was kept the same.)
Rest is a widely debated topic when it comes to hypertrophy. Some say long rest, some say short rest. Here’s the deal, when we’re increasing training volume it means adding reps and additional sets over time. This increases the length of our workouts, and for someone with limited time, this might not work. Short rest intervals will allow us to push the volume necessary to drive hypertrophy without turning each workout into a 3-hour marathon session. You can build muscle with long or short rest intervals, so pick whatever works with your schedule.
To build muscle we need to train hard and do more sets/reps as time goes on. Some pros of building muscle (that aren’t just “it looks cool”):
Healthier handling of blood sugar (muscle has been described as a sponge for blood sugar) which can help reduce the likelihood of diabetes
Reduced risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, dyslipidemia, and various cancers
A decrease in all-cause mortality (decreased risk of dying from any cause)
Training Adherence: Train Whatever Makes You Happy
Whether you choose to train for strength or hypertrophy, there is a large carryover between the two. Someone who gets stronger has a higher potential for building muscle, and someone who builds more muscle has a higher potential for strength.
Along similar lines, the positive health benefits are not likely to be a result of the specific adaptation being chased, but rather a benefit of the consistent stress being applied to your body via exercise that results in an overall increase in resilience.
My goal with highlighting these differences is to get you in the gym more consistently. If training for strength helps you stay adherent to your program, then I would like to make sure I give you a workout that you’re excited to do. If hypertrophy training gets you excited to go work out, then I’d like to provide a workout program focused on hypertrophy. At the end of the day, not working out isn’t an option if we want to take our physical, mental, and emotional well-being seriously. So, the more informed you are about what style of training you like, the higher the chances I can help you be successful in sticking to your plan.